It is not good for the man to be alone

If only you could have been there … in the year 1987, my family moved from the bustling streets of Bayouside Drive in Little Calliou to the relatively quiet neighborhood of Cypress Village in Bayou Black. We, like many families, were looking to move up after Hurricane Juan flooded our area. We left the beautiful community of St. Joseph in Chauvin with the legendary Msgr. Frederic Brunet to join St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Bayou Black.

Growing up at St. Anthony in the late 80s, 90s, and early 2000s was an experience! We had Father Gerard Hayes who was known for his brief but deep homilies and his unwavering love for our parish. There was the New Creation Music Ministry, which must have had around 20 members that filled our church with beautiful music. Later the Kepha Youth Group was started and benefitted the parish in many ways including music ministry, retreat ministry, Bible studies and much more. We even had a parish song: “Father make us one,” or as the teenagers called it “Father make a swan.” We sang that song occasionally at the beginning of Sunday Mass holding hands and even stretching into the aisles to emphasize our togetherness. The parish was filled with energy! I remember growing up with this sense of pride that I belonged to the great community of St. Anthony!

When my dad broke his arm and couldn’t work for six months, it was St. Anthony that paid our electric bill. When I was an obese teenager struggling to find an identity, it was the community of St. Anthony and the many mentors in my life that helped me to realize I had value and I was loved by God. When I was a little kid, it was where I had the opportunity to be one of the three kings in the Christmas play. It was where I accidentally peeled-out in the parking lot one day as a teenager and was scolded by the late Mrs. Peggy Huval, who was DRE at the time. It was where I acted-out the role of Pontius Pilate three years in a row in the greatest passion play known to man. It was where we had these awesome dinner theatres where Father Mike Bergeron was Sonny Bono and Father Josh Rodrigue was Willie Nelson. It was/and still is my home. I could go on and on sharing memories, but I’ve made my point that the Community of St. Anthony helped to shape the man and the priest I am today.

As we begin the year of our Lord 2023, here in the United States and in many places around the world we have this great tradition of looking back at the end of the year and creating New Year’s Resolutions. Many people, including myself, start with our diet and exercise routines only to be thwarted by the first sight of that Red Velvet King Cake at Cannata’s. Another very popular resolution revolves around our spiritual lives. A Len Wilson survey states: “January is a good month for (church attendance). People make new life commitments during this time, which often includes higher levels of church participation.” In fact, looking at the statistics of this survey, January and February are the two highest months for church attendance in the entire year, excluding Palm Sunday, Christmas and Easter. As a pastor of a parish, I often wonder why my parish can’t maintain the momentum of January and February. I think it’s easy, maybe borderline lazy, to chalk it up to a lack of will power, but I often wonder how best to change this disturbing statistic.
 
When I am out and about, I often run into people who once seeing my priest collar start making promises that they will return to Mass or tell me reasons why they don’t attend Mass. A large majority of the reasons I hear have to do with a conflict either with the priest or another parishioner that drove them away from Mass and the community. Personally, I can say these stories break my heart. When in these conversations, I try to avoid making false promises. For example, I try not to say, “Well that parish is just toxic but at St. Ann everything is great and wonderful.” Or, “St. Ann used to be like that back in the day, but we have changed.” I don’t say things like that because it’s not true. St. Ann has a beautiful community, and I could list just as many beautiful memories as I did about St. Anthony. But, its pastor and its parishioners are not without faults. I can’t guarantee that there will be no relationship conflicts or tensions. I can’t guarantee that every homily will be a homerun. I can’t guarantee that we have a ministry that meets everyone’s wants/needs. I can’t guarantee perfection.

My point is: We need to be realistic about what a good parish community looks like and we need to recognize that community is something we all have to work at. I began this article with a bunch of good memories from my home parish, but I can share many bad memories as well. All of those memories were a product of people coming together to make community. The best advice I can give someone seeking to plug back into a parish community is to fight, to grind, and to work! I ask you to fight because you have a right to belong to your parish! If you haven’t been to Mass in a while, firstly I suggest going to confession. Then, when/if that judgmental parishioner gives you the stink-eye because you haven’t been to Mass in a long time, you can at least be confident that you are right with the Lord. I ask you to grind, meaning to persevere through difficulties. In St. Ignatius’ Rules for Discernment, he says when we are in desolation we should trust that the Lord will send a remedy as soon as possible. And I ask you to work. Just like any marriage, the relationship demands that the husband and wife continue to give themselves completely in the marriage. The same is true with any church parish community. It may be more complex because there are a lot more relationships, but to pull away from the relationship completely, normally ends with its destruction. Instead, working through difficult and tense situations normally bears a stronger and more durable relationship.

Perfect church parish communities do not exist on this side of heaven. We can put a lot of effort in trying to find the “perfect parish,” and when we think we have found it we can become disenchanted when it turns out to be flawed. Please don’t let judgmental parishioners push you away from the parish that you have a right to belong to. Instead, I suggest spending energy building the community. Authentic community only happens when people become vulnerable and share themselves with one another. Sometimes that vulnerability leads to heart ache and sometimes it leads to beauty. We continue to enter into community because we know the possibilities that coming together can produce. I promise the juice is worth the squeeze. We can’t be church without each other!